Leaders call for responsibility and democracy as T&T turns 50

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is call­ing on cit­i­zens to put the safe­ty and fu­ture of their chil­dren ahead of per­son­al and par­ti­san in­ter­ests, while Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is warn­ing that democ­ra­cy is un­der at­tack as Trinidad and To­ba­go marks 50 years as a re­pub­lic.

In her Re­pub­lic Day mes­sage is­sued yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on cit­i­zens to con­tribute to the coun­try’s progress and pros­per­i­ty and to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the fu­ture of the na­tion.

“Re­pub­li­can cit­i­zen­ship asks some­thing of each of us,” she said.

She said cit­i­zens could not ex­pect in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life while tol­er­at­ing cor­rup­tion in their own deal­ings, or de­mand safer streets while pro­tect­ing those who bring vi­o­lence in­to their neigh­bour­hoods.

“On this fifti­eth Re­pub­lic Day, I ask you to stand for your coun­try and for the fu­ture your chil­dren de­serve. Place their safe­ty, their op­por­tu­ni­ties and their hopes above per­son­al and par­ti­san ad­van­tage,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came a Re­pub­lic on Au­gust 1, 1976, while Sep­tem­ber 24 marks the date the coun­try’s first Par­lia­ment met un­der the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the coun­try’s fu­ture was in the hands of its cit­i­zens and pledged to con­tin­ue work­ing for the safe­ty and ad­vance­ment of every cit­i­zen.

Beck­les, how­ev­er, used her Re­pub­lic Day mes­sage to raise con­cerns about the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of crime, leg­is­la­tion and ex­ec­u­tive pow­er.

“A Re­pub­lic is not mere­ly a coun­try with­out a King or Queen. It is a na­tion gov­erned by con­sti­tu­tion­al re­straint, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions, fun­da­men­tal rights and re­spect for the dig­ni­ty of every cit­i­zen,” she said.

Beck­les said “democ­ra­cy is un­der at­tack”, ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to nor­malise what she de­scribed as ex­ces­sive ex­ec­u­tive pow­er.

She crit­i­cised the pro­longed use of States of Emer­gency, point­ing to thou­sands of ar­rests and peo­ple who re­main un­charged fol­low­ing the lat­est pe­ri­od of emer­gency rule.

“The ques­tion is not whether crime must be con­front­ed. It must. The ques­tion is whether emer­gency pow­ers can be­come a sub­sti­tute for a com­pre­hen­sive crime strat­e­gy, ef­fec­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tions, pros­e­cu­tions and con­vic­tions,” Beck­les said.

She al­so crit­i­cised the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026, say­ing its pas­sage fol­low­ing the State of Emer­gency re­quired “the clos­est con­sti­tu­tion­al scruti­ny”.

Beck­les raised sim­i­lar con­cerns about pro­posed amend­ments to pub­lic pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly changes in­volv­ing ex­emp­tions from or­di­nary pro­cure­ment rules and over­sight of pub­lic spend­ing.

“Pub­lic of­fice is not pri­vate prop­er­ty,” she said, adding that the Po­lice Ser­vice, Par­lia­ment and Con­sti­tu­tion do not be­long to the Prime Min­is­ter but to the Re­pub­lic and ul­ti­mate­ly the peo­ple.

Beck­les called on cit­i­zens to re­ject at­tempts to “nor­malise ex­ces­sive ex­ec­u­tive pow­er, weak­en in­de­pen­dent over­sight or in­tim­i­date cit­i­zens in­to si­lence”.

She said Trinidad and To­ba­go, af­ter 50 years as a re­pub­lic, “can and ought to be in a bet­ter space”, call­ing for greater op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple and de­vel­op­ment spaces for com­mu­ni­ties.